1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to method and apparatus for determining what parameter value is to be utilized by plural revisable modules comprising a platform, particularly a telecommunications platform.
2. Related Art and Other Considerations
In a typical cellular radio system, mobile user equipment units (UEs) communicate via a radio access network (RAN) to one or more core networks. The user equipment units (UEs) can be mobile stations such as mobile telephones (“cellular” telephones) and laptops with mobile termination, and thus can be, for example, portable, pocket, hand-held, computer-included, or car-mounted mobile devices which communicate voice and/or data with radio access network.
The radio access network (RAN) covers a geographical area which is divided into cell areas, with each cell area being served by a base station. A cell is a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the radio base station equipment at a base station site. Each cell is identified by a unique identity, which is broadcast in the cell. The base stations communicate over the air interface (e.g., radio frequencies) with the user equipment units (UE) within range of the base stations. In the radio access network, several base stations are typically connected (e.g., by landlines or microwave) to a radio network controller (RNC). The radio network controller, also sometimes termed a base station controller (BSC), supervises and coordinates various activities of the plural base stations connected thereto. The radio network controllers are typically connected to one or more core networks.
The radio base station and radio network controller generally described above are examples of nodes or platforms of a telecommunications system which can employ several modules. Typically such nodes or platforms have both software and hardware modules, and a fairly complex relationship can exist between the modules.
In view of their complexity there can be one or more dependencies between the differing modules. As one example of complexity, for its execution a software module may require a certain calibration parameter, with the value of that calibration parameter depending upon a type or identity (e.g., version) of a particular hardware module utilized at the node or platform. As another example, interfacing of a first software module with a second software module may entail usage of parameter similarly having a value dependent on the type or identity of one or more of the communicating software modules.
One prior art technique for handling parameter whose value depends on an identity of a module is to store such parameter in a database at one module of a platform. For example, such a database (storing, e.g., a definitive value for a particular hardware-influenced parameter) may be situated at or belong to a hardware module (stored, e.g., in a local memory in the hardware), and be accessible by a software module that utilizes that particular parameter. If the hardware module is changed (e.g., upgraded or replaced), the corresponding definitive parameter can be easily accessed from the database of the new hardware module (the parameter value may change as a result of the module change) and, in many instances, also be utilized by the unchanged software module.
A more complex situation occurs when the choice of a value for the parameter depends not just on the identity of one module which utilizes the parameter (e.g., the hardware module in the scenario of the previous paragraph), but also the identity of other modules which utilize the parameter (e.g., the software module in the scenario of the previous paragraph). In other words, the determination of the value for the parameter depends upon the combination of identities of two otherwise independently upgradable/revisable modules. In this complex situation, if the database is stored at the hardware module, release of a new version of the software module is problematic. Conversely, if the database is stored at the software module, the definitive parameter value stored in the database may not be compatible with a new version of a hardware module.
What is needed, therefore, and an object of the present invention, is a technique which facilitates upgrading or changing of a module of a platform or node when the identities of a combination (e.g., plural) of modules of the node influence determination of a parameter utilized by the combination of the modules.